On not paving Paradise

March 13, 2013

Not many people live along Lower Rock Creek and that’s the way the people that do, like it.

The little community of Paradise has been waging a small war for the last few years, trying to get a developer and Mono County to make the main trailhead along the creek safe after a recent development went in near the old Paradise Lodge and Restaurant.

The trailhead is now in great demand by not only hikers, but mountain bikers, too, who consider Lower Rock Creek Canyon to be one of the premier mountain bike trails in the Eastern Sierra—and beyond—and who have put a lot of pressure on both Paradise and the trailhead.

But community members have been plagued by what they believe to be an excessively slow response to their concerns that the trailhead is too close to a hair pin turn, and they have stated that frustration at numerous meetings over the past several years.

Finally, on Tuesday, March 5, the long wait for a solution appears to be over.

The Mono County Board of Supervisors finally agreed to give the community a new, modified guard rail for the trailhead area, which will allow pedestrians to walk safely beside the road as they cross Lower Rock Creek on their way from the trailhead parking area to the trail.

“It was a good solution,” said the area’s supervisor, Fred Stump, who, along with previous supervisor Duane “Hap” Hazard, has been dogged by problems at the site. “Its not expensive, it’s safe, and it will work well.”